One of the places which I frequented as many times as I went to the Mahabodhi temple is a bookshop called Middle Way Bookshop. Most of the time, I found an American Baha'i sadhu, James, sitting there. He donates his time to the shop. James declined to be photographed. James is a very interesting conversationalist. More on him later.
The Middle Way bookshop, located just outside the Mahabodhi temple in what is known as Main Market Bodhgaya is an extremely well stocked bookshop. It had around 15000 titles on Buddhsim, Indology and also some general books. Most delightful part of the shop is that the persons looking after the shop are very knowledgable. As my old student and friend Ambuj Anand pointed on one of our visits, when I was looking for a book on Prakrit, James just pointed to the right place in one go and also knew the colour of the book. And this is despite the fact that Prakrit is much less common in a bookshop devoted to Buddhism.
The bookshop is owned by a genial soul, called Shahabuddin. Again a walking encyclopaedia on books about Buddhism. A Bodhgaya local, Shahabuddin worked for many years as a volunteer in the bookshop of Mahabodhi Society of India before starting the bookshop around 20 years back. And named it after a book, The Middle Land and the Middle Way, by an Australian author, Sravasti Dhammika, who is also a friend of his.
It is a Niyamat or blessing to have such a bookshop in contemporary times. And with such knowledgeable people looking after it.
Whenever I visited the shop, it was also a shelter to many dogs and also a goat who, James thought, thinks of herself as a dog and hangs around with them.:-))
(विद्यानंद झा जी के फेसबुक वाल पर बोधगया के एक अनछुए पहलु पर लिखी गयी टिपण्णी से साभार )
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